A senior Russian defense official and about 100 troops landed in Caracas over the weekend, according to reports.
By Karen DeYoung Karen DeYoung Associate editor and senior national security correspondent Email Bio Follow March 25 at 1:20 PM Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told his Russian counterpart Monday that the United States “will not stand idly by” if Russia continues to send military personnel to Venezuela to prop up President Nicolás Maduro, the State Department said.
U.S. frustration with the situation has grown as efforts to convince the Venezuelan military to switch sides and support Guaidó have produced few results, even as thousands of anti-Maduro protesters have taken to the streets amid severe shortages of food, water and medical care. The military and pro-Maduro paramilitary groups have escalated the use of force against the Guaidó supporters.
In Moscow, Nikolai Patrushev, head of the state security council, accused the administration of acting to “promote U.S. economic interests” and “take over Venezuelan oil,” according to an interview with the Izvestia newspaper published Monday. Last month, Patrushev charged that the United States was deploying troops to Colombia and Puerto Rico ahead of a planned military intervention to topple Maduro.
Flight tracking websites said the planes had taken off from Russian military airports. Russia made no official comment on the flights, although government-owned Sputnik news agency on Monday quoted an unnamed “diplomatic source in Caracas” saying that Russian military personnel had arrived “to take part in bilateral consultations” with the Maduro government.
Since the election of Hugo Chávez as Venezuela’s president in 1999, Russia has been the country’s primary military supplier. Under Maduro, who became president after Chavez’s death in 2013, Moscow has extended billions in loans to Caracas, much of it under arrangements to repay the debt with Venezuelan oil.
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